ArenaNet is making it known to the MMO community that they are aiming to revolutionize the way questing is done in the genre.
In the latest blog entry for Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet lead content designer Colin Johanson described in length the details of the upcoming game’s Dynamic Events System and just how the system will change the way players quest.
As in traditional MMOs, players will run to an NPC with an exclamation point or question mark over their head. They then read or completely ignore the paragraph of text, complete the quests’ goals, and return to receive their reward. Johanson claims that this tried-and-true system of gameplay for MMOs "is just an outdated form of storytelling."
"In Guild Wars 2, our event system won’t make you read a huge quest description to find out what’s going on," wrote Johanson. "You’ll experience it by seeing and hearing things in the world. If a dragon is attacking, you won’t read three paragraphs telling you about it, you’ll see buildings exploding in giant balls of fire, and hear characters in the game world screaming about a dragon attack. You’ll hear guards from nearby cities trying to recruit players to go help fight the dragon, and see huge clouds of smoke in the distance, rising from the village under siege."
He then went on to discuss how another tradition of MMOs is for quest text to describe the urgency of what you must do, such as defend the village from ogres, but the gameplay doesn’t follow through. Instead of an invasion, players walk to an ogre spawning area and kill them until it is time to receive your award.
"At ArenaNet, we believe this is NOT good enough," Johanson wrote. "In Guild Wars 2, if a character tells you ogres are coming to destroy a house, they will really come and smash down the house if you don’t stop them!"
The event system in Guild Wars 2 will also have something other MMORPGs do not, a cascading ripple effect on the game world. If an army of dredge attacks a village, it is up to the players to decide if they want to fight back or leave the village to slaughter. Both outcomes will drastically effect how that area of the world evolves from that moment on.
So does the effects of the ensuing battle if players win or lose against the army. If players win, they can press on to fight off the main dredge force and free the area of their influence and aggression. But if they fail, the fighting will get worse.
"If, on the other hand, players fail to destroy the army, it will establish a fort in friendly player territory," stated Johanson. "From there, the dredge will send shipments of troops and supplies to the fort from the main base while building up walls, turrets, and siege engines to help defend it. Enemy dredge forces will then begin to move out from their newly established fort to attack friendly player locations in the area, sending snipers out into the hills, sending assault team forces to capture friendly player villages, and trying to smash down friendly fortifications with massive dredge walkers. All of these events continue to cascade out into further chains of events where cause and effect is directly related to the player’s actions."
Such a system can cause the game world to evolve at a constant, creating a new environment every time a player enters the game world.
For more details on the Guild Wars 2 Dynamic Events System, be sure to follow the link below.
